Some friends and I have talked about sharing a cow for a while now.... Our plan was to keep it in one friend's barn and each of us take turns milking and feeding her. In a cute apron of course. We thought of the wholesomeness of organic milk with no hormones. Add to that, you need raw milk to make cheese. Pasteurized milk just doesn't work. Then we starting thinking of what ifs. What if the roads are bad, what if one of us wants out, what if she (the cow) gets sick..... What started out as an idyllic vision of us all being farm girls began looking more like a lot of trouble. So we all decided to stick with chickens for now.
Then I found a wonderful solution. Herd Sharing with an organic dairy farmer. This is how it works. I bought a share of a dairy cow. The farmer takes care of her, feeds milks her, and replaces her if she dies or stops producing milk. Once a week a friend picks up the milk and brings it to her farm market where I pick it up in a plastic jug. I bring it home, put it into cute glass bottles and wait for the cream to rise. Then I ladle the cream into a jar. Next I pour myself a glass of cold milk, grab a couple of cookies and sit down. Exhausting, I know. Diana