I have decided that this season is my last summer milking cows. It has taken me a lot of thinking but I have made up my mind. A number of reasons really – among them and the most important: my family keeps growing, they do not live close to me and I cannot travel for eight or nine months of the year. I am tied to a cow. Sometimes my children need my help and I want to be available for them.
Another reason is getting the cows pregnant. My cow vet is far away now and coordinating with someone to breed them has become a real problem. Asking favours of people I do not know to breed cows I don’t want to milk. It all adds up.
It is a hard decision with a lot ahead but I know it is right.
So (as well as a few steers) I will be selling Aunty Del, Carlos (who has produced no calves) and Aunty Anna. Lady Astor is too old to be sold on, and she has been a good milking companion – once she accepted her training and stopped kicking me – but her udder needs special care so unless I can find her a special home, she can just make like a horse and wander about the back fields for a while.
It will be a wrench to sell the Aunties but it has to happen. Aunty Del is young – she has a real future as a milk cow. Alex, Txiki and Tia will go to visit a local low line Angus, but they will raise any calves they have as beef. Both of the young ones are half Angus. I am not milking them.
My fourth son who lives in New Zealand is out working in California for a few months and he has his family with him and I cannot visit them because I am milking a cow. This makes me sick. I so seldom see my family. How can they possibly understand. Choosing a cow over them. I need to be able to move about more now. That is all.
Anyway that is my decision. And I am happy with it. I will milk Lady until Christmas then hang it up. 
Today Alex leaves us and I am on my own for three weeks. John is home one day a week. But I am almost up to date in the gardens, Alex has left me in good shape, so as long as I put in the hours it will be alright. I really need the gardens to sell produce so I can go home to New Zealand for Christmas this year. I am happy to put in the hours. It all works out.
It is dry now – after all that rain. And hot. Now I am watering every morning and evening.
Rue the wee piglet came in and hung out in the house for the day, rearranged all my furniture and stuck his nose into everything, he played with a pile of ice on the verandah for ages but I got nothing done – he cried and carried on every time Boo and I went into the gardens. He is little and bony but healthy and bright so the pig lady is coming to collect him today. She loves it when I send her a runt. He will do well with her.
The corn is up. 
Oh and all the piglets are now together – the barn doors and both the backyard gates are wide open. No problems at all. The pigs adapted well.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
The weather forecast: If I had hay I would be cutting it. Hot and dry.
Saturday 06/10 0% / 0 in
A mainly sunny sky. High 89F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph.
Saturday Night 06/10 0% / 0 in
Clear. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
The Kitchen's Garden 
49 responses to “A momentous decision”
Decisions like this are so difficult, but you know what is best for you. The milking thing is a tough one, as I know! I am just lucky my boys are in the area for the moment
Yes you do know – we have to make our plans so far ahead! c
A hard but sensible decision…Family are a most important of anyone's life…so well done Miss C…a very good decision
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 1:15 PM
Yes, I know John is disappointed because I am choosing my family not his , but he does not have to do the milking and leaves the farm every day. c
i think that this is a good decision overall. while some things will be lost, you will gain so much more –
Yes, though selling Del will be tough.. I hope I can find her a good home.. c
No decision you make on the farmy is an easy one C, but it always has to be one which works for you.
Have a glorious weekend.
🙂 Mandy xo
You are right – no real decision is easy anywhere.. c
Tough decisions, but you know what is best for you. We know how you love your travels, but oh, the cream, yogurt and ice cream . . . . A shame the family doesn’t come to visit you. I hope they do.
Yes the cream. My children and their families live all over the world – they all visit on occassion but it should be easier for me to move about than for them.. c
I am thinking along the same lines. My 82 year old mother came to visit for graduation and I realized that this could be the last time I see her. I can’t leave the farm to make a trip to Texas because I am milking a cow. All my children will be gone to college next year so I won’t even have any milk drinkers at home. I’m still in the process of thinking this through, however, since our milk cow is like a big dog and one of the family. Hmmmmm. Much to think about.
I understand the big dog metaphor – this is why I am going to leave Lady here. c
Very little in life is simple, or static. Change is never easy but is bettet done by choice. Rue looked quite at home.
Little Rue is a born house pig – he was very at home though a trifle busy! c
This is a big decision!!! So glad to read your careful thoughts and that you feel good about it. Hope you can get to CA again somehow to see them before they leave.
I won’t be able to go there as I am milking for months and months now – however I hope they can come out here at the end of the job.. c
Hard as change is, progress is rarely made without it! Pleased the piggy transitions went smoothly 🙂 Laura
very good point! c
My family gave up our dairy business in 1993. We were all a bit lost for a while. It is so hard to redefine your time and purpose when you quit something that has taken up so much of your life for so long. The cattle will adjust and so will you. You will find that time without milking is good time and relinquishing those ties that held you back will feel more like freedom. You will still be able to witness the soothing energy of Lady Aster in the pasture. 🙂 Best wishes for your new start.
I am happy for you having reached that decision. Really, truly.
You are wise to follow your gut, to weigh and measure what is important to you. Most of my unhappiness in life is because of decisions I make to do for others and not having followed my heart for my own good. To be courageous and loose yourself of what is not working or prohibiting you from living your life, is the best gift to give yourself and those around you. You should enjoy being the mother and grandmother that yearns to be a gypsy… to travel and be present to enlighten your growing family and bathe them in love.
The Fellowship has said it well, be true to yourself. If only you had some maids a ‘milking’ to rely on. Do what you must. Perhaps some barter in the area with a small farmer who milks their own cows could provide butter and other dairy products. Just a thought.
Hmmmm, aids to milking rather than Maids…. Is it too late for Lady A’s calf to take back the store, so to speak? Any chance of a local who would come milk and take the milk with them for a week to allow you a CA break – and if that works, maybe periodically through this last milking season? Do you have any nearby Amish or Mennonite families – just thinking with my fingers. (call Lady A your therapy milker and take her with you! What a sight that would be!)
I remember the day we gave up the milking. It was a sad day. BUT we kept all the cows and started raising beef cows from them. The steers brought in extra money and the heifers were kept to grow the herd. We kept cows for years this way…when Terry decided he was done with fences and the herd cows I cried. But life does move on. And so did we. Something goes and we all adjust.
Wow! This is major! Heartbreaking. I admire you so much for having the courage To make such hard decisions, especially when John is disappointed. You have made enormous sacrifices. You have given ALL to your critters particularly your cows. Thinking of Daisy and your recent absolute terror with Lady and milk fever.